President Donald Trump has finally named the enemy: Mexican drug cartels. Declaring them unlawful combatants and recognizing a “non-international armed conflict” marks one of the most consequential national security shifts in modern history. For decades, Washington treated cartel violence as a crime — a problem for prosecutors, not generals. Indictments were filed, assets seized, and sanctions imposed. But the cartels fought a different kind of war, one that combined terror, intelligenc...
